Drafting apparatus

ABSTRACT

Drafting apparatus and method to draft sliver which has at least some of the staple fibers therein longer than the distance between center lines of adjacent pairs of rolls in a drafting system.

1 tet 1 1 Sanders Mar. 112, 19741 [54] DRAFTING APPARATUS 2,777,168 1/1957 Noguera 19/255 x 4 A [75] Inventor: Grady H. Sanders, Spartanburg, 29pm 2/1969 Fusamh 19/255 FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS Assigneel Deering Milliken Research 1,064,092 4/1967 Great Britain 19/250 v Corporation, Spartanburgh, SC.

[22] Filed: 1972 Primary Examiner-Dorsey Newton [21] App]. No.: 281,564 Attorney, Agent, or Firm-H. William Petry; Earle R.

Related US. Application Data M d [62] Division of Ser. No. 179,022, Sept. 9, I971.

v [52] US. Cl. 19/255 57 ABSTRACT [51] Int. Cl Dfllh 5/88 1 [58] Field of 583112}! "IQ/244M256, f i apparatus and method to draft Sliver which 19093 has at least some of the staple fibers therein longer than the distance between center lines of adjacent [56] References 'i pairs of rolls in a drafting system. UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,132,299 10/1938 Jackson 19/255 X 1 Claim, 3 Drawing Figures mamas PAIENIE XR 1 2 I974 SHEH 1 BF 2 DRAWING APPARATUS 179,022, filed Sept. 9, 1971.

In recent years the textile industry has gone into production of yarn which contains longer and longer staple fibers. This yarn is either a blend of long and short staple fibers or composed of all long staple fibers. It is very difficult to draft long fibers on spinning frames on the cotton system since the ratch or distance between pairs of drafting rolls is to short to draft long staple fibers of 3 inches or more length. Various techniques have been tried on these spinning frames but involved expensive modifications of the frame and resulted in poor quality yarn.

Therefore it is an object of the invention to provide a method and apparatus to draft long staple fibers which does not involve expensive modification to the spinning frame and provides a high quality yarn.

Other objects and advantages of the invention will become clearly apparent as the specification proceeds to describe the invention with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. I is a top view of the new and improved drafting arrangement;

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the drafting arrangement shown in FIG. 1; and

FIG. 3 is a view showing the cradle side plate mount-- ing in relation to the front and middle drafting rolls.

Looking now to the drawings, the drafting arrangement comprises three sets of drafting rolls, namely, back rolls and 12, middle rolls 14 and 16 and front rolls I8 and 20; Each set of rolls has the rolls in nip forming engagement with each set of rolls being driven by any suitable means, such as motors 21, 23, and 25, schematically represented in FIG. I, at a faster rate than the preceding set of rolls to provide the desired degree of drafting of the fibers in the zones between the respective pairs of rolls.

As pointed out previously, the purpose of this invention is to provide a method and apparatus to draft long staple fibers on a conventional cotton spinning frame on which the normal ratch is about 4 inches from the center line of the rear rolls to the center line of the front rolls. To accomplish this a new and novel drafting cradle is provided. The drafting cradle has a pair of side walls 22 and 24 each having a notch 26 to engage the lower front roll 20 and another surface 28 to engage the lower middle roll 16. Interconnected between the side walls 22 and 24 is an apron guiding member 30 which has a concave surface 32 engaging the surface of the roll 16 and two apron reversing portions 34 and 38. The apron reversing portions are connected'by an apron guiding surface 40 to guide the apron 42 from apron reversing portion 34 to apron reversing portion 38. Another apron guiding surface 44 extends between the apron reversing portion 38 and the concave surface 32. Preferably the apron guiding member 30 will be made in two sections with one section molded to side 22 and the other section 24 so that they will mate together..

Side walls 22 and 24 have notches 46 therein to accommodate the stub shafts 48 and 50 connected to the apron reversing nose portion 52 of the elongated apron guide member 54 which extends across the width of apron 53. Attached to the stub shafts 48 and 50 are tabs 56 and 58 toaid in maintaining the cradle walls 22 and 24 in a predetermined spaced relationship. Each of the side walls has an oval shaped notch 60 therein to accommodate a dowel 62 attached to the side of the apron guide member 54. A screw member 64 is screwed down through the top of each side wall 22 and 24 and through each dowel 62 to adjust the tension in the apron 53 and the tensor opening between the aprons 42 and 53 at the respective nose portions 38 and 52. It can be seen that if the screw 64 is screwed in the downward direction the nose portion 52 will move upwardly in the notches 46 and vice versa, thereby providing'ease of adjustment of the tensor opening without replacement of parts.

In the upper portion of the cradle walls 22 and 24 are further notches 65 to accommodate the stub shafts 66 and 68 attached to bar member 70. Tabs 72 and 74, like tabs 56 and 58, also aid in maintaining the spaced relationship of the side Walls 22 and 24. Another notch 76 is located in each of the bottom portions of the cradle side walls 22 and 24 to accommodate the bar member 78 for further support of the spaced relationship of the cradle walls.

The cradle walls 22 and 24 are each molded with a hook portion 80 to define a cavity into which the upper roll is guided into nip forming relationship with roll 16 by the weight arm (not shown) ofthe drafting system.

In operation a silver or roving of fibers F is supplied into the nip of rear rolls 10, 12 through a conventional condenser 81. From the nip of rolls l0, 12 the fibers F wrap partially around roll 10 and are directed upwardly over bar 70. From the bar the fibers F pass downwardly into the nip of the middle rolls 14, 16. At the nip of rolls 14, 16 the drafting aprons contact the fibers F and aid in guiding the fibers around the roll 14 back wardly to and around the reversing portion 34 of the apron guiding member 54 and down the apron guiding surface 40 into the nip of front rolls 18, 20. From the nip of rolls I8, 20 the fibers are twisted into yarn Y by the conventional ring R and traveler T and taken up on bobbin B.

It should be noted that the fiber path between the nip of rolls I10, 12 and rolls 14, 16 as well as the fiber path between rolls I4, 16 and I8, 20 is considerably longer than the normal fiber path which normally would be directly from one nip to the next adjacent nip. Therefore, much longer fibers can be drafted without the individual fibers being caught between two adjacent nips and being broken due to the differential speed of the rolls.

Although I have described in detail the preferred embodiment of my invention I contemplate that many changes may be made without dearting from the scope of spirit of my invention and I desire to be limited only by the-claims.

That which is claimed is:

II. A drafting cradle comprising: a pair of wall members, means holding said wall members in spaced relationship, a first apron guiding member connected to and between said wall members, a second apron guiding member connected between said wall members and having a portion thereof in contiguous relationship with said first apron guiding member, means operably associated with one of said apron guiding members to vary the contiguous relationship between said apron guiding members, each of said side walls-having a notch therein, said second apron guiding member having pro- 3 4 jections therein engaging said notches, at least one of contiguous relationship including a screw means operasaid side walls having a slot therein and a dowel membly associated with said dowel to raise and lower the bar on the side of said second apron guiding member projections in said notches. projecting through said slot and said means to vary the 

1. A drafting cradle comprising: a pair of wall members, means holding said wall members in spaced relationship, a first apron guiding member connected to and between said wall members, a second apron guiding member connected between said wall members and having a portion thereof in contiguous relationship with said first apron guiding member, means operably associated with one of said apron guiding members to vary the contiguous relationship between said apron guiding members, each of said side walls having a notch therein, said second apron guiding member having projections therein engaging said notches, at least one of said side walls having a slot therein and a dowel member on the side of said second apron guiding member projecting through said slot and said means to vary the contiguous relationship including a screw means operably associated with said dowel to raise and lower the projections in said notches. 